March 27, 2008

Coober Pedy

Took a tour back to Adelaide, stopping off for a night in Coober Pedy.

The first stop was to see Dinky Dingo, a cool dingo that sings when people play piano.

Then we went to Coober Pedy the site of the richest opal mines in the world. Since the temperature in Coober Pedy rises above 45 degrees, and since they have all kinds of mining equipment, most people on Coober Pedy live underground. The borough caves in the sides of hills and then furnish the caves as houses. Underground it stays a constant room temperature while outside it can range from -5 degrees to over 45 degrees.


piles of dirt dug out looking for opals

The spaceship from the movie "Pitch Black"


Underground museum


underground kitchen


tunnel dug searching for opals

This glob of opals is probably worth $40,000



an underground gambling operation

a salt lake

the longest man made structure in the world... a dingo fence that stretches across most of Australia

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I wouldn't want to look after that fence!!!

Andrew said...

yeah its something like 5000km long and it actually has to go underground a little way so the dingoes don't burrow under it

Anonymous said...

That's a good idea to live underground when it's so hot. We should do that in Toronto in the summer and save on AC.

Sharon and Brian